


Every Stumble and Each Misfire

by DoctorRainyStardusttheThird (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Sherlock, Suicide Attempt, i literally just went crazy, poor old sherlock's been through the mill, sherlock was treated a bit like eurus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-14 03:31:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15379722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/DoctorRainyStardusttheThird
Summary: Sherlock is kidnapped and drugged. Nothing major, but in hospital, in front of John and Lestrade, Sherlock's undone mind begins to spill secrets Sherlock's kept buried for years.‘Please don’t send me back, Mycroft,’ Sherlock said, his voice barely a whisper. His eyes were focused on something over John’s shoulder. ‘I can’t take it anymore.’A shiver ran down Lestrade’s spine. The fear in Sherlock’s eyes was so real, so raw. He was begging his brother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so my hand slipped and...whoops! here we are
> 
> lots of angst :( lots of johnlock :) lots of mycroft being a bit not good.
> 
> everything will be explained in later chapters, don't you worry :)
> 
> i hope you like xx

John rushed up to Lestrade. Lestrade ended his call and prepared himself for John’s questions.

Sherlock had been taking a cab back from God-knows-where when he’d been accosted by three men and drugged. According to nearby security footage, he’d put up one hell of a fight – watching, Lestrade had been surprised by the man’s skill and apparent experience – and would’ve no doubt gotten away had it not been for the chloroform. Sherlock had been missing two days before Mycroft located him, and had had him brought to Bart’s to be treated. Drug overdose, apparently.

‘How is he?’

John’s hair was ruffled; he looked like he’d barely slept.

‘He’s, uh…he’s in a bit of a way.’

‘What happened?’

‘Drugs, the doctors think…but they can’t get near enough for a blood test, or even to sedate him.’

John pushed past, and together the two men entered Sherlock’s hospital room, Donovan and Anderson following behind.

It was a sight. Three doctors stood round Sherlock, who was curled with his back to the wall. Sherlock was dressed in a grey shirt with the sleeves pushed up, dark jeans and cracked Doc Martens. Lestrade could make out the needle marks on the detective’s forearms.

The doctors were attempting to get closer, syringes ready to knock him out. But Sherlock wasn’t having any of it. He had his head in his hands, arms balanced on his knees, but whenever a doctor got within a metre’s distance he lashed out with a yell.

‘Bloody hell,’ John heard Anderson say from behind him. Anderson and Donovan were watching the detective they hated fall apart with a perverse kind of fascination.

Lestrade stepped forward. ‘Sherlock, mate…’ he began.

‘Get the fuck away from me!’ Sherlock yelled, and the whole room winced. There was such genuine terror in Sherlock’s voice.

‘What have they given him?’ John shouted to the nearest doctor, who looked shaken.

‘We don’t know. It’s a hallucigenic, almost certainly. Probably induces paranoia. But we’re worried – it looks like an overdose and we don’t know if there’s enough in his system to be seriously dangerous.’

‘Shit,’ John swore. ‘Sherlock?’

Sherlock stopped yelling for a moment. They could hear his ragged, terrified breathing.

‘Come on, Sherlock.’ John neared. Sherlock kept his head in his hands, but he’d quietened down.

‘Shall we try and sedate him?’ a nurse asked when it was clear Sherlock wasn’t about to beat John’s head off.

‘You can try,’ John said doubtfully.

But the second the nurse came closer with the needle Sherlock panicked again. His thin hands shook frighteningly as he lifted them to protect his head. ‘No more needles,’ he choked out. ‘No more!’

‘Okay, okay, no more needles,’ John said, looking back at a nervous Lestrade. Anderson and Donovan didn’t look so satisfied anymore, and Donovan had stopped filming the detective with her phone.

_‘Please don’t send me back, Mycroft,’ Sherlock said, his voice barely a whisper. His eyes were focused on something over John’s shoulder. ‘I can’t take it anymore.’_

_A shiver ran down Lestrade’s spine. The fear in Sherlock’s eyes was so real, so raw. He was begging his brother._

John sat back on his heels. ‘This isn’t just the drug,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Drugs attack the part of the mind to do with fear. I think the drug has induced a post-traumatic-stress flashback.’ He gave a bitter sort of laugh. ‘I’m familiar with them.’

‘I promise, Cal, I promise!’ Sherlock was begging again, this time cowering against the wall. John reached out to touch Sherlock, but the younger man flinched away violently. ‘I won’t do it again, Cal, stop, you’re hurting me!’

Donovan had gone white. ‘Who’s Cal?’ she whispered.

Lestrade looked like he was going to be sick. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll kill myself.’ Sherlock’s voice was dramatically different when he said this. ‘If you leave me here, Mycroft, I swear to God I will kill myself.’

‘Sherlock…’

The moment John touched Sherlock’s back, it was like the detective had been electrocuted. ‘I don’t know anything!’ he shrieked, making the whole room wince again. ‘I don’t know anything…I’m not working with him! Please – I can’t take it anymore! I’ll _die!_ Stop…stop, please!’

Sherlock began to speak in another language, harsh and guttural, and at lightening pace.

‘What’s he saying?’ Anderson said, looking with horror at the trembling Sherlock.

‘I don’t know!’

Sherlock’s voice changed – still the same frantic tone but a different language now.

’Hang on…’ John said slowly. ‘That’s Pashto – the language they speak in Afghanistan. I picked some of it up during my army years,’ he explained to the others. ‘He’s saying…’

Sherlock had his head buried in his arms. He was muttering over and over again.

‘He’s too fast…help. He’s asking for help. And for someone to…to stop hurting him. And he doesn’t know anything. He keeps repeating that.’ John looked up, white-faced, eyes catching Lestrade’s.

‘You know what that sounds like, don’t you?’ the detective inspector choked out.

‘Shut up, everyone!’

John had never been more relieved to hear Mycroft’s voice. It was commanding, but there was fear, too.

Mycroft pointed at the three white-coated doctors. ‘Out. Now.’

‘We need to sedate him, sir…’

‘You are triggering him. Out.’

They hurried out. John stepped away, to stand with Lestrade, Anderson and Donovan, and Mycroft took his place.

‘Sherlock,’ Mycroft began quietly. Sherlock froze at the sound of his voice.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were momentarily clear. Then they clouded again.

‘I will kill you, you bastard!’ Sherlock jerked forward, and Mycroft stumbled back, hand to his nose. It was bleeding.

‘Sherlock…’

‘You left me there! You LEFT ME!’

‘Sherlock, you aren’t there. You’re not with Cal. You are not in the facility.’ Mycroft’s voice was shaky, and John felt his heart sink.

Sherlock began to talk in another language again. Then his voice snapped abruptly back to calm.

‘You always leave me.’

Mycroft crouched closer. ‘What did they give you, little brother?’

‘You leave me, always. With Cal. In the facility…for my own good.’ Sherlock’s voice was cold with hatred. ‘In Serbia.’

‘What did they give you?’

‘Who’s Cal?’ John demanded.

Mycroft didn’t answer. Instead, he slapped his brother violently across the face.

Donovan took a step back at the harsh sound.

‘What did they give you?’ Mycroft’s voice was low and dangerous. ‘Was it Moran?’

Sherlock’s eyes were clear, but glassy.

‘The same as last time…but worse,’ Sherlock breathed. ‘Much, much worse.’

Mycroft didn’t move. The whole room was still.

‘Lysophalixfor,’ Sherlock gasped out.

Mycroft swore, then grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him, none too gently.

‘Did you talk?’ Sherlock didn’t reply, muttering under his breath about colours and letters and bright, bright, bright.

‘Sherlock – did – you – TALK?’ The urgency in Mycroft’s voice shocked them all.

Sherlock gave a slow, deranged smile. ‘What the fuck do you take me for, brother dear? Of course I didn’t talk. It was a drug. It was hardly Serbia, or Afghanistan…remember Serbia, brother mine?’

‘Sherlock, you are not in Serbia. Moriarty is gone. Cal is dead. You never have to go back to the facility, okay?’ Mycroft’s voice sounded thick with tears.

It took ten more minutes, but eventually the flashbacks and hallucinations seemed to slow down. Sherlock began to mumble, nonsensical, most of it. It was like seeing Sherlock’s thoughts spilling directly from his head.

‘The bright colours like grey for three, and blue for two…they did that for ages, didn’t they, Mycroft…lots of words, so bright they hurt my head…sirens for two days, remember that one? And then you got my violin and there was peace…and cases…and peace…’

Mycroft started to help his trembling brother upright. Sherlock slumped against the wall, but he was on his feet, at least.

‘Never peace,’ he murmured. ‘Too much noise, in my head…how does it fit? How does it…then there’s too much and my computer crashes, my hard drive…that fascinates them, they watched me on cameras…they had syringes, just like Cal…and Moran…and the doctors…’

‘Come on, into bed.’ Mycroft heaved Sherlock onto the hospital bed. He was worryingly light for a man of his height.

‘Where’s Janine?’ Sherlock’s eyes were focused again. Mycroft was the only person who seemed to understand the question – the rest exchanged uneasy looks.

‘Janine’s coming – so’s Anthea. And Irene. Soon, Sherlock.’ Sherlock’s eyes widened briefly when Mycroft slid the needle into his arm, but he was asleep moments later.

Mycroft let out a slow, shaky breath. ‘He’s out,’ he murmured. ‘For a couple of hours, at least.’

John let out a small, strangled noise. ‘What the – hell was that?’

Mycroft stood up straighter. ‘Nothing that need concern you.’

Mycroft made to leave, but Lestrade blocked his path. ‘It has everything to do with us!’ he said, in a voice of controlled calm. ‘Sherlock is our friend.’

Donovan and Anderson shifted guiltily.

Mycroft sighed. ‘I can’t tell you anything.’

‘You can,’ John said, ‘and you will.’

Mycroft adjusted his cufflinks, seeing no way out. ‘Fine,’ ‘the British Government’ huffed. ‘Take a seat.’

Because this was Mycroft, Sherlock had been taken to a hospital room slightly apart from the chaos of the wards and the emergency department. He’d been given a larger room, low-lit, with blinds at the windows and a seating area at the back. John and Lestrade squished onto the low leather couch together. Donovan and Anderson sat in the two plastic chairs, slightly to the side. Mycroft took his place in the comfortable armchair facing them, arranging himself like a king on a throne.

‘You must understand that I can’t tell you anything.’

‘Can’t you tell us about the facility? What was it?’ Mycroft remained stubbornly silent. John sighed. ‘Okay. What about Serbia? Afghanistan?’

Mycroft leaned back. ‘Everything you are asking about is highly classified. So that there are less than ten people on this planet who know the details. You must understand that I can’t tell you them.’

Lestrade got angry. ‘That’s it? You’re not going to tell us anything? What’s the bloody point?’

‘Can you at least tell us who Cal is?’ John pressed.

Mycroft looked haunted for a moment. ‘I suppose I can tell you that…’ he mused. ‘But, ironically, I think that’s the very thing Sherlock would be angriest with me for telling you about.’

Donovan leaned into Anderson. She didn’t even know why she was allowed to remain here, unless this Mycroft person had decided she needed to be taught a lesson.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘but who exactly are you?’

Mycroft looked at her with distaste. ‘My name is Mycroft Holmes,’ he told her, ‘I’m Sherlock’s brother.’

‘Oh, God, there’s two of them,’ Anderson mumbled, and was soon on the receiving end of three ferocious glares.

‘Caleb Holmes,’ Mycroft began reluctantly. ‘Cal –‘ he paused. ‘Is our father.’

‘Oh God,’ John murmured. Lestrade slowly sank his head into his hands.

‘Our mother was named Dinah,’ Mycroft said slowly, figuring he may as well tell them what he could. ‘She was a good mother, but she was ill. She had a genetic heart condition that shortened her life span considerably.’ Mycroft took a deep breath then went on. ‘I was an intelligent child. I saw details people missed, and understood things others didn’t. I was ten when Sherlock was born.’

The room was quiet, listening.

‘If I was special, Sherlock was a phenomenon. The world had never seen a mind like his before. While I saw what ordinary people missed, Sherlock – Sherlock saw everything. However he used to suffer from sensory overload, bad enough to the point that he would lock himself in his room for days on end, lost in his own head.’ Mycroft swallowed. ‘I was eighteen when our mother died, in university. I was looking towards a bright career in MI6. Sherlock was eight at the time.’ Mycroft spun his umbrella faster. ‘I should have been there,’ he said quietly. Then he cleared his throat and went on. ‘Our father had a history of substance abuse, and his addictions worsened after our mother died. When Sherlock was eleven, I went back, to check on him.’

It was a good ten seconds before Mycroft spoke again. ‘I will never forget it,’ he said dully. ‘My father had beaten Sherlock almost to the point of death. I called an ambulance, and when they’d taken my baby brother away I found a camera, in his room. He’d set it up himself. He wanted to film our father…hurting him, so I’d believe him and take him away when I visited.

‘From what I could deduce from the video, Sherlock had suffered a massive sensory overload the day before I arrived. His screaming fit had enraged our drunk father, and he had…’ Mycroft swallowed. ‘He’d beaten Sherlock to get him to shut up. When Sherlock screamed more, he injected him with a near-lethal dose of heroin and cocaine.

‘Apparently, that happened often. Often enough that Sherlock was irrevocably addicted to the drugs. Our father was taken away and imprisoned. He died a year later.’

‘What happened to Sherlock?’ John whispered.

Lestrade was milk-white. Donovan was sobbing softly into Anderson’s shoulder. Anderson looked like he wanted to vomit. Lestrade couldn’t help feeling a kind of satisfaction that those two were obviously finally feeling guilty – but at the same time, he knew Sherlock would hate them knowing about his past.

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably. ‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘I don’t give a damn what you can and can’t tell us, Mycroft! But I do give a damn about my friend!’

Everyone in the room instinctively looked towards Sherlock. He was still knocked out. He looked dangerously thin, and agitated even in sleep. Every now and then, his left hand would twitch.

‘He never sleeps, barely eats, Sherlock…he tortures himself whenever he can’t solve a case, or if he can’t save someone, even if it’s not his fault – I have to help save him from the fallout, so you can _bloody well tell me how he got that way!_ ’ John yelled.

Mycroft swallowed. ‘Then you’d better swear that not a word leaves this room.’


	2. Author's Note

I'm going on holiday for a few weeks so I won't be updating for a while :( 

Hope you hang in there for me, love you guys a lot.

Sorry about ending it on a cliffhanger - is this how it feels to be Moffatiss? 

Thanks for reading, you guys are the best xx


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's life is literal hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so in this story i imagine that sherlock was treated a bit like eurus, because he became unbalanced after his experiences as a kid. i literally torture the poor guy. lots of sherlock whumpage :)
> 
> poor old mycroft has a LOT to feel guilty for xx

‘Sherlock…was in hospital for his twelfth birthday. He spent several weeks in a coma, and when he woke he suffered from awful withdrawals.’ Mycroft fixed his intense, unnerving gaze on Lestrade. ‘Sherlock spent his life trying to get off those drugs, detective inspector. It was when he met you that he finally got properly clean.’

Lestrade swallowed.

‘But what’s that…facility he kept mentioning?’ John asked, twisting his hands in his lap.

Mycroft looked ashamed – actually ashamed. ‘That’s not something I’m proud of.’

John raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s also strictly confidential.’

John raised his other eyebrow. Mycroft sighed. John was one of the only people who could wear him down.

‘I can only tell you if I can be certain that you won’t repeat a word spoken inside this room. I’ve had this room swept for bugs already…’

‘Sorry,’ Donovan interrupted, scrubbing her tears away, ‘what is it you do again?’

Mycroft pursed his lips. ‘I occupy a minor position in the British Government.’

Lestrade and John snorted in unison.

Mycroft glared. He put his hand inside his jacket and took out several forms. ‘Fill these out. Know if any of you break the conditions I can have you arrested, and have everything you say discredited, before your little goldfish brains can even grasp what’s happening.’

Anderson actually looked offended. ‘You are just like Sherlock.’

‘Sherlock is a better man than me,’ Mycroft said, so softly it didn’t sound like he meant to be heard.

Donovan took a form and read through it. ‘A minor position?’

‘Why are you two here?’ John turned to Mycroft. ‘Why are they staying?’

Mycroft gave a twisted smile. ‘I’m fully aware of how they treat my brother. I think it’d be nice if he got some credit for once.’ His gaze fixed on Lestrade and John again. ‘That goes for you two, as well.’

Mycroft coughed slightly as he took the papers back. He carefully folded them twice each and tucked them in his pockets. Then he adjusted his watchchain and took off his blazer.

Finally when he could procrastinate no more, he leaned forwards and steepled his fingers together like Sherlock always did. Instinctively, John looked at the sleeping man on the nearby bed. There was a crease between his eyebrows, but he was still knocked out.

‘Sherlock and I had no close family, so, naturally, his care passed to me. The government became aware of Sherlock’s superior intellect through several tests – and began to craft a plan, in which we could use his mind to the advantage of the country.’ Mycroft fiddled with a ring on his finger.

‘He was just a child,’ he said, voice breaking. After a moment he regained his composure and continued.

‘I was a young man at the time – twenty-three, working closely with the secret service on en route to becoming fairly powerful. I was…blinded. I saw Sherlock not as a little brother, but more as a weapon, something that could be of use to me…which is how _they_ began to see him too.’

He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘I arranged for Sherlock to be taken to a government facility known as Sherrinford. My brother’s experiences as a child had left him…unbalanced. Sherrinford was a prison, of sorts, for the greatest and most dangerous minds across the world.’

‘He was…twelve,’ John croaked.

Mycroft nodded gravely. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s sick.’

Mycroft couldn’t look at them. ‘Only the employees of Sherrinford and ten members of the government know the place exists. And now, you.’

‘What happened there?’ John asked, thinking back to Sherlock’s fear of the doctors, talking about the experiments.

‘I didn’t know much about the place at first – I was still fairly young. The doctors there got Sherlock clean, and had psychologists talk to him…but I found the government had authorized…testing, of sorts, to find out how Sherlock’s mind was…possible, I suppose. How he worked.’

He chanced a glance up. Everyone looked horrified.

‘I visited him, sometimes…with government cases. I would hand him a laptop…after an hour on Twitter he could tell me when and where the next terrorist attacks where planned for. I would show him security footage and he would be able to tell me exactly who the perpetrators were. But he spent most of his time constructing bizarre chemical experiments. That hasn’t changed. He liked the logic of science.

‘I gave him his violin for his fourteenth birthday. He played it…non-stop, apparently, for nights and days. All he wanted was sheet music – in return for saving hundreds, thousands of lives, he wanted sheet music.’ Mycroft gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘He told me he wanted to kill himself. I didn’t talk to him about that – I just doubled his security and made sure he didn’t have access to anything he could use to harm himself.

‘When he turned fifteen, I was in a high position of power, and willing to offer him a place in the secret service, and his release.

‘He vanished, for a year. I managed to send him cases, but he didn’t turn up till a year later. He’d…’ Mycroft pressed a hand to his eyes. ‘He’d slit his wrists in some drug den. Wiggins…a – friend of his, had called an ambulance.

‘This was a wakeup call for me. I realised what I’d been doing to my younger brother, for years and years. It’s a miracle he came out the good person he is now.’

Donovan and Anderson were still with shock. Whatever they’d expected, it hadn’t been this.

John and Lestrade were horrified. John was struggling to comprehend how Mycroft could have done this…and how Sherlock was still just a man. Who did ridiculous experiments and ignored Molly’s crush and kept forgetting Lestrade’s name and liked puppies and dancing and tea. His best friend.

‘But Sherlock was back on drugs. And, because he had secret service training and a superior brain, even the best couldn’t find him, until he overdosed – day after his seventeenth birthday. Lestrade, you met him then – he gave you a false name, and age – Sherlock Holmes, twenty years old, consulting detective. He created a new persona. Kept the Holmes, though, despite everything.’

John licked his dry lips, still processing.  ‘What’s his real name?’

Mycroft smiled joylessly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that remains a secret. You search him, and all you’ll ever find is his false records.’

‘I can’t believe this,’ Lestrade croaked. ‘I can’t believe this.’

‘What about Afghanistan? Serbia?’ John asked.

Mycroft’s expression darkened. ‘That’s what happened to Sherlock while he was dismantling Moriarty’s criminal network. He was captured, twice.’ Mycroft swallowed. ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t need to explain to you what the Afghans and the Serbs do to their prisoners.’

John shook his head. ‘No. Oh God, no.’

Mycroft just looked at his hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it! sorry about the massive wait. i've been on holiday for a month. ur patient ppl :)
> 
> comments, kudos, prompts etc are all welcome xx


	4. Note

Hi, it’s me.

This is a note to say I’m really really sorry, but I won’t be posting anything anymore.

There’s a good reason for this, but I’d rather not say what it is.

I won’t be contactable, and I’m really sorry. If anyone wants to finish writing my stories for me, cause I know I left some really awful cliffhangers, I’ll put the rest of the storyline below. I know how annoying unfinished fanfic is.

You’ve been amazing readers and I’ve loved reading your comments, made my day 

**Author's Note:**

> so!
> 
> comments, kudos, prompts etc all welcome!
> 
> i really need to stop torturing poor old sherlock xx


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